Philippine senator's plea to colleagues misrepresented as 'vow to defy constitution'

"We will be defying the constitution, we, the senators," Hontiveros is heard saying in Tagalog in a Facebook reel posted on June 26, 2025.

It was shared after the Senate voted to send back to the House of Representatives the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte (archived link).

The vice president was impeached by the lower house in February on charges of graft, corruption and an alleged assassination plot against one-time ally and former running mate President Ferdinand Marcos.

A conviction in the Senate would require the support of two-thirds of its 24 members, and would see Duterte removed as vice president and permanently banned from public office.

Before the case can return to the Senate, the House must certify that it did not violate the constitution in its handling of impeachment proceedings and that it remained willing to prosecute the case after its new members take their seats.

Hontiveros opposed the motion to send the case to the lower body, calling the decision a "functional dismissal”.

Image

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on July 1, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The clip also spread in similar Facebook and TikTok posts.

"Wow, defy the constitution? You think you're more powerful than the country's laws?" read a comment on one of the posts.

Another wrote: "She really wants to remove the vice president!"

But the clip has been misleadingly edited to omit Hontiveros's full remarks. It was also earlier fact-checked by Philippine media organisation Vera Files (archived link).

A reverse image search on Google using a keyframe from the falsely shared clip found it was taken from a news conference held by Hontiveros on June 9 (archived link).

At the 9:15 mark, Hontiveros was asked if she thinks convening as an impeachment court is optional for the Senate.

"Oh, definitely not. Definitely not," she says before responding further in Tagalog.

"If we look at it and act as if convening as an impeachment court is optional, we will be defying the constitution, we, the senators.

"And that's why I've been saying that we in the minority will not allow this. As a senator, I will not agree to that."

Her answer is also shown in the transcript of the press conference published on the Senate's website (archived link).

Duterte's impeachment has spawned a wave of misinformation debunked by AFP here.